


what the water gave us

by calembours



Category: Marvel (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Age of X (Marvel), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 03:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11199492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calembours/pseuds/calembours
Summary: Charles Xavier was paralyzed from birth and after his father's death his mother finds someone else who will take care of him. However, his new life comes with a price that must eventually be paid.





	what the water gave us

**Author's Note:**

> This story is basically a love letter to the Age of X comics run, and everything I love about X-Men. Except, you know, with more mermaids.
> 
> A lot, _a lot_ of the themes and plot lines in this are rehashed from canon events, so feel free to consider it a tribute, though you don't need to have read the comics to follow along. I also didn't list every appearing character, as it could be spoilery in the long run.

The woman in the water was a dark shape in the moonlight, and her eyes glowed soft gold as she watched Sharon Xavier help her young son undress at the shore. The woman went by the name Mystique, and when Sharon carried the boy over, he was unafraid.

' _Hello, Charles_ ,' Mystique thought and rose up in the water to reach for him. Her skin was dark blue, dappled with scales and raised marks that swirled over her body and up into her hairline. There was thin webbing between her fingers, and her nails were coloured a red darker than her hair.

The boy was slight and pale, with freckled skin and bright blue eyes. He seemed inexplicably human and frail, up until the whisper of his voice that ghosted over the top of her mind. ' _You've come to take me away from here,'_ he said, and under his words was a sharp tone of hope that he couldn't mask completely. ' _My legs don't matter to you_.' They barely noticed when Sharon started moving away, struggling against the sand in her heeled shoes.

Mystique had Charles by the arms and held him still as he floated on the water. Cool warning tipped into her mental voice and nudged at Charles. ' _Stay out of my head, and you won't need them.'_

He nodded in agreement, and then a strange ripple passed over Mystique's skin, scales flicking and shifting at her wrists and down her hands. Her fingertips flickered and blurred before the shifting continued on, and Charles jerked as it sank into him. His skin flashed blue as the ripple traveled through him, slicing back to his own peach tones slowly, and scales started raising on his skin. They smoothed over his chest and along his neck, down over his arms and collected at his waist in large overlays.

Charles went still as his legs pulled together, the pain dropping away completely. He stared wide-eyed at Mystique when he started to feel a mild tingling, and sensation dropped down, below a point on his spine that had never given him anything but empty numbness since he was born.

"I can-" Charles is startled, delightfully excited with what he's been given, and Mystique's teeth flashed in the light as she grinned at him. "You've _changed_ me." She loosed a hand from one of his arms and Charles reached down to feel where his legs had been. They were gone, replaced by a strange glide of scale and flesh that stretched down as far as Charles could touch. When he pressed, he could _feel_ his hand doing it, and he laughed aloud.

Charles turned back to the shore, about to call his mother over, only to find she was gone.

Mystique pulled him away and they dropped back into the water together to dip below the next roll of the tide. She tugged him along until he sorted out the motion of swimming, not unlike the way he was accustomed to with his legs strapped together by leather bands. He gulped in lungfuls of water and felt it pass away, oxygen filtering out from beneath the row of neat scales that lifted along his collar.

_'This is fantastic!'_ Mystique glanced back at him and let go with a smile. Charles briefly scrambled when his speed dropped, and she circled around to watch while he clumsily continued to propel himself along. The feeling of freedom that usually came with swimming was tenfold, unhindered by the thought that Charles never had to go back, never had to drag himself out of the water and back to his chair.

_'Thankyousomuch_ ,' Charles thought, and knew the sound of it to be messy by the way Mystique paused to process it. He openly admired the way she twisted effortlessly in the ocean, tail flicking behind her.

Her voice is amused, but almost fond, rippling through the water. "Come along, Charles." She turned and swam away, her outline going blurry in the dark of deeper water. He followed after her without even a fleeting glance back, or a thought for the life he had left on the land.

Mystique had a son, just as blue and scaled as she. Though his ears were pointed and his teeth were sharper, he looked at Charles with the same glowing gaze, and slipped around him with a playful curiosity as he thought about how he hadn't had someone to play with for quite some time. He thought of his sister, a girl with a bright-white streak in her hair, and touched at Charles' skin with something a little like remorse.

His name was Kurt and he remembered the anger and grief that shook his mother the day that his sister left the water. He didn't know the details, only that she wasn't the same afterward. His other mother, Destiny, hadn't seen it coming, despite the gift that gave her her name.

Charles is met with a shifting blankness where Destiny's mind is supposed to be and it made him uncomfortable enough for her to notice. She drifted in the water like a ghost, pale from her hair to the end of her tail, with eyes that clouded over with mist. It didn't stop her from examining Charles when he prodded at her thoughts, however, and she smiled at him with a secretive expression.

"Don't search too deep," Destiny told him at length, and tapped two fingers to her temple. "I see too much for someone like you to go wandering around."

Charles didn't understand what she meant, but he recognized the kindness in the warning. Destiny turned to indicate Kurt a split second before he appeared in the water beside them, jumping from his mother's side across the reef to appear at Destiny's elbow. The inky cloud that marked his arrival drifted away and Destiny left them in favour of searching out Mystique, swimming slowly.

Kurt took Charles' hand with a toothy smile and pulled him along, showing Charles around his new home.

-

A few days passed and Charles couldn't help but stretch his mind across the ocean in search of other people. The ocean was wide and empty, unerringly silent despite the presence of his new family. He found the reaches of a large colony entirely by accident and collided roughly with the mind of a man whose screams reverberate in the water, startling fish and others of his people. Charles apologized as best as he can through the man's panic before swiftly retreating, pulling back to himself sharply.

Kurt was holding him still by the shoulders when Charles reopened his eyes, and the expression that twisted across Charles' face was both guilty and slightly embarrassed. When he looked around he can see how far he's drifted, pulled along by the ocean currents.

"Be careful, my friend," Kurt murmured. There was worry behind his words as he examined Charles' face. "You'll get lost if you wander on your own." It was similar enough to Destiny's warning about her mind that Charles sighed uncertainly at Kurt.

"It's too quiet," Charles confessed. He immediately felt awful about complaining, considering what he'd been given. After living on the edges of a blooming town, the drop in thoughts pressing against his was deafening, leaving him greedy for the whisper of another mind. Kurt slanted him a questioning look and Charles wiggled his fingers in the vicinity of his own temple.

"Ah," Kurt breathed slowly. Bubbles slipped out from the gills on the side of his neck and raced towards the surface of the water. "Can I help?" He bared his teeth in a slight grin and released Charles' shoulders in favour of curling loose around him. "Should I think louder? Compose limericks?"

Charles slipped away from him and darted into an abrupt game of chase that Kurt quickly followed him for. _Could we maybe talk like this? Just for now?_ He brushed against the edges of Kurt's mind and coaxed him into thinking concrete sentences instead of vague ideas and feelings.

_If you like_ , Kurt thought. He caught up to Charles with a burst of speed, and reached out to tap against Charles' fin. He dipped down and away when Charles twisted into a turn and led him along the ocean bed. _It's not like I hide much from Destiny, anyway._

It took Charles quite a bit longer to catch up and he still had the feeling that Kurt was taking it easy on him. They spent the rest of the afternoon lazily chasing back and forth, and then chasing after fish when the water started to cool with the sunset. Charles contented himself with the toss of banter between them, sighing at the open contact of Kurt's mind.

It wasn't until much later, when they were resting near each other in among the reef, that Charles realized how far he'd sunk into Kurt's subconscious. Without even trying he could hear the whisper-hum of Kurt's dreams, and with a little nudging, Charles could even change them. It was a little bit like pulling levers, and the ease of it made Charles withdraw to his own head. He'd rather face the silence of an empty ocean than the silence of having accidentally blanked his new-found brother's mind in a moment of sleepy alarm.

 

-

 

Five years later saw that Kurt and Charles had taken to exploring sunken wrecks off the coral reef where they made their home. By then, Charles' life on land seemed a distant memory, as mysterious as the hulking shapes of broken ships half-buried on the ocean floor.

_'What's that noise?'_ Charles rubbed at his temples and frowned at the strange pressure building. Kurt looked at him from inside the shattered galley of a wreck, surrounded by shining dinnerware not yet grown-over with algae. The gentle rush of water pulsed between them as Kurt listened, his head half-cocked as he had a tendency to do.

Kurt answered, _'I don't hear anything, my friend.'_ He floated towards Charles with a concerned expression, obviously picking up on his unease. _'What direction?'_

Charles focused for a moment and then took off, Kurt close behind him. They swam away from the ship and rose higher in the water, climbing together beyond a hazy layer of ocean that surface light didn't quite filter through. There was a ship completely beneath the water and moving their way, heading toward land. Its hull was sleek and metallic, and instead of sails it had propellers at the back, churning in the water. The copper-coloured sides of the ship was dotted with windows and whirling gears, and through the glass bottom they could see the rush and push of people inside.

"Oh," Charles said, startled into speaking aloud. He pulled himself out of the warmth of Kurt's thoughts for the first time in years, almost befuddling them both with the unfamiliar effort. Charles gasped at the sudden clutter of foreign minds, all of them messy and new, and his eyes fluttered shut as he reached out to the ship, greedy at the contact and pull of emotion, the glancing snippets of personalities colliding with his own.

Then suddenly, almost like punch, hot anger burst against Charles hard enough to send him reeling in the water. Kurt's hand on his elbow steadied him almost immediately, and he bared his teeth slightly at the strange ship. _'What's wrong?'_ Kurt asked.

_'I don't know.'_ Charles told him. His chest ached with the echo of someone else's grief and he leaned heavily on Kurt. _'Something is happening over there.'_

The copper ship shuddered in the water and one side pinched inward slowly, groaning with the effort. The windows shattered on the same side and through the glass bottom they could see people running, almost fleeing down the corridors.

Charles was swimming towards the ship before he could think about it, hardly able to breathe. The ship was sinking - he could feel it battering at him from every mind on board, screaming in his head about the terrifying vastness of the water, the inability to swim, the distance to the land. The fear was blinding, cold and shrill, and Charles smacked up against the glass bottom with his hands pressed to it, desperate for a way to help them.

"Charles!" Kurt half-crashed into him. He pulled at Charles' hands and shoulders, trying to get him away from the glass. "What are you doing?" _'_

_They're sinking,'_ Charles twisted away from Kurt for a moment, only to be snatched back again. "We have to do something!"

"No, it's all right. They're fine, look -" Kurt forced Charles to turn and see as dozens of little copper pods detached from the ship. Each of them were carrying people towards the surface, propellers whirling and pushing them along. Charles' irrational panic lessened with each person that was spirited away, leaving only a dull ache of sadness and hurt.

A loud burst of thought from Kurt was the only warning that Charles had before experiencing the displacement that came with being teleported through the water. With the inky shadow fading around them Charles could see the glass bottom of the ship follow suit with the hull, and large chunks of glass fell in sluggish slices where they had been swimming. The small pods had stopped detaching, either because everyone was off the ship, or because whatever device had been setting them loose had stopped working. Of the numerous pods already set free, however, one was descending towards the ocean floor instead of rising towards the surface.

They must have noticed at the same time, or Charles wasn't paying attention to thinking quietly (which was more likely given how wide his mind was thrown open), but he and Kurt darted out, back into the vicinity of the falling debris, swimming hard for the falling pod. Kurt jumped them as close as he dared, narrowly missing reappearing inside a glass coil, and tugged Charles along in a way that made Charles feel like he was newly dropped into the water, trailing after Kurt for the first time.

They grasped opposite sides of the rail when they made contact with the sinking pod, and tried to slow its decent. The propellers on the top of the pod hummed evenly and continued to drive it down, despite their efforts. After a second and third try with no results, Kurt slid around and pulled Charles tight against the railing to make him stop.

_'What now?'_ Kurt asked, the edges of his thoughts messy with adrenaline and fear. Charles didn't answer and instead peered at the person inside the pod.

There was a boy sprawled across the small floor, tall and lean with blood dripping from under drift of bangs. He looked pale, probably from his injury, and slightly dazed, almost as if he'd been shoved inside the pod with little care. His thoughts were like fire when Charles came up against them and he recognized the boy as source of the anger from before the ship started to sink.

"Charles," Kurt hissed urgently.

The boy was staring at them now and slowly pushing himself up with shaking hands. Charles fished about in the boy's mind for his name and offered a small smile. _'Erik, don't be alarmed. We're trying to help you._ '

Erik's stare deepened to suspicion. _'Who are you? What do you want?'_ He didn't question Charles' telepathy as he'd never met anyone of the mer; the brief wonder of the two boys in the water was buried almost immediately by flashes of recent memory. Charles could barely grasp the piercing image of a woman, Erik's mother, and what must be Erik's father, both of them killed in front of him on the ship.

_'Oh, Erik,'_ Charles couldn't help but say, feeling wretched in the aftermath of the memory, _'Your family, I'm so sorry-_ '

_'What do you **want**?'_ Erik shouted the words, but neither Kurt nor Charles heard them, and suddenly he was pressed up to the glass and glaring furiously at them. Kurt bared his teeth instinctively, but Charles saw the shine of tears in Erik's eyes, felt the rolling hurt beneath the anger.

The pod creaked when Erik's hands curled into fists, and through Erik, Charles could feel the frame of the pod bend slightly. It wasn't the copper that was responding; it was thin and decorative, but there was a metal beneath the copper that made up the frame. With this, Charles realized what happened to the ship. He glanced up at it and saw how far away they fell, and how close they were getting to the rocks along the reef. _'_

_Erik,'_ he said urgently, and flattened over the glass despite protest from Kurt. Charles sinked deeper into Erik's thoughts and pushed the image of the propellers, controls, anything that would stop the pod's plummet, into the forefront of Erik's mind. _'We need your help._ '

Charles' breath escaped him in one woosh and he felt Erik's emotions suddenly sitting like a weight on his chest. Erik was confused and frightened, defiant enough to want to seek out the man who took away his loved ones and make him pay for it, but burdened by the notion that he was completely and utterly-

_'Erik, please, you're not alone!'_

Erik shuddered and tipped his head up to look at them both, eyes fixed on Charles for a long moment, and then down the slope of his body to his flicking tail. He spent a long moment watching the way Kurt held both their weight and his fingers curled tight on the pod edges as he watched the closing distance to the ocean floor.

"Charles-" Kurt warned, fear sharp and bright in his gold eyes. Charles could feel his intentions to wrench Charles away from the pod, the stranger be dammed. He curled his fingers tighter on the rail before Kurt followed through on the thought, and kept his eyes on Erik instead.

' _Please_ ," Charles said desperately. He pushed the thought of propellers at Erik again.

The image of a coin crowded in on Erik's will and Charles fought it off, continuously replacing it with the sight of the copper hull buckling in one long ripple. ' _My friend, we can help you if you do this for me._ '

The propellers crumpled abruptly, twisting in on themselves, along with the bottom ring of the canister. It was too much for the glass that cracked suddenly along one side, but for Kurt and Charles, they could fight the speed of the decent. They scrambled apart and Kurt swung around, the pod tipping onto an angle with the force of him swimming in the opposite direction. Charles was confused for a moment, both swimming and not swimming, watching Erik and then himself, bewilderingly struggling with his half of the pod.

"Away!" Kurt cried and Charles didn't let go in time before the heavy 'thud' of the pod against the reef sent him spinning. It stunned him enough to shake loose from Erik's mind and leave him reeling in the confines of his own skin. Inside the pod, Erik rolled against the cracking glass as they slipped down the rocks. The railing caught on a jutting slice of the reef wall and creaked to a stop.

Charles struggled to sit up in the coral, feeling sluggish and exhausted, his whole body shaking with the effort. He watched Kurt float anxiously around the capsule, his hands pressed here and there for quick moments. Charles couldn't hear what he was saying, but there was a tension to his expression that Charles has never seen before. Kurt made a motion of covering his face with his arms and then paused before he threw his body into a sharp twist. His tail smacked heavily against the already-breaking glass, once and then again, and Charles could do no more than stare horrified at Kurt, limp against the reef.

It happened in quick succession; the glass collapsed in with a rush of water, one large bubble with the remaining air rising to burst against Kurt's chest. Kurt leaned in with a wince and then vanished, a dark cloud left where he'd been floating. Charles couldn't help but close his eyes, the image of two similar bursts of darkness in the water, each closer to the surface pressing against his eyelids.

-

Kurt's face was close when Charles opened his eyes again and they stared at each other for a while without saying anything. There were cuts on Kurt's skin, and Charles ached all over. He felt appropriately contained in his own head for the first time since he could remember. Kurt's thoughts were a whisper when he spoke to Charles, but it wasn't Kurt's doing.

' _He's alive, on the surface._ ' His expression asked what they were going to do next. Charles didn't have effort enough to plan beyond seeing Erik for himself and he pushed the notion at Kurt, too tired for words.

Kurt helped Charles out of the coral and they swam side-by-side slowly enough that Charles could see that he wasn't the only one who was tired and hurt from their efforts to save the one boy. He tried not to think about how it might have turned out if more than one pod had been dropping to the sea floor. It took much longer than expected to break the surface of the water, and by then the ocean had cooled slightly with the setting sun.

Erik was adrift on a makeshift raft of a oversize curved blade from the copper ship's main propeller. He wasn't alone, but Destiny appeared from behind a floating piece of debris before Charles and Kurt could try to rush closer. She reached toward them, and motioned for them to be quiet.

Mystique had Erik pressed against the blade, her hands curled tight around his shoulders. Her expression was closed, but critical, and beneath the water her tail flicked with interest. "You did this," she murmured, and her voice slipped across the top of the water, easy enough for Charles and Kurt to hear her clearly. Erik chose not to answer, but Mystique didn't seem interested in conversation.

Her eyes slipped away to glance around them and even though Erik squirmed immediately, she held him steady. "You're powerful," Mystique said simply and turned her attention back to him. "Betrayed." She nodded when Erik's expression closed with the unwillingness to respond. "I _know_ betrayal. I was- am - like you, but it's not enough. Do you understand?" She shook him once, just enough to rock him in place. "Not for what you'll want."

"There's nothing I want," Erik said boldly. Charles could hear the raw edges of his words, could distantly feel the despair that chanted _it's been taken from me_.

Mystique bared her teeth slightly in a dark smile. "Who betrayed you?"

Erik went tense at the question and Kurt's hand tugged on Charles' fin as he instinctively moved forward in the water. Mystique leaned close to whisper against the curve of Erik's ear and whatever she said was kept between them, too quiet to carry past the squaring of their shoulders. With a flash of familiarity, Charles could guess what was coming next.

Erik's transformation looked more difficult than Charles' had been, perhaps because wasn't paralyzed, or because surrendering to change wasn't an easy concept for him to embrace. The ripple of blue scale that shocked through Erik's body was rough and fast, circling down his torso and ripping his legs from the trousers he'd been wearing. The glitter of his fins was dark and shadowed, closer to the blue of Mystique's colouring than the odd bottle-green that Charles had developed. He writhed on the floating metal with his teeth gritted against the pain, and laid there panting lightly after Mystique had let him go. She slipped back into the water with a pleased laugh and Destiny drifted over to meet her, both of them vanishing into the waves.

Though Charles couldn't shake the uneasy feeling at whatever had passed between Erik and Mystique, he was too tired to press for the knowledge. He instead sank into the warm pleasure of Kurt's pleased thoughts at having another member for their cobbled-together family and went to show Erik the way home.

 


End file.
